The Vampire: A Casebook

By: Alan Dundes

Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin

Finally, the truth about vampires.

Vampires are the most fearsome and fascinating of all creatures of folklore. For the first time, detailed accounts of the vampire and how its tradition developed in different cultures are gathered in one volume by eminent folklorist Alan Dundes. Leading scholars from the fields of Slavic studies, history, anthropology, and psychiatry unearth the true nature of the vampire from its birth in graveyard lore to the modern-day psychiatric patient with a penchant for drinking blood.

The Vampire: A Casebook takes this legend out of the realm of literature and film and back to its dark beginnings in folk traditions. The essays examine the history of the word "vampire"; Romanian vampires; Greek vampires; Serbian vampires; the physical attributes of vampires; the killing of vampires; and the possible psychoanalytic underpinnings of vampires. Much more than simply a scary creature of the human imagination, the vampire has been and continues to haunt the lives of all those who encounter it - in reality or in fiction. The book is published by University of Wisconsin Press.

©1998 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System (P)2010 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

" The Vampire is a winner.... Alan Dundes is a truly remarkable scholar." (Wolfgang Mieder, author of The Politics of Proverbs)

Great content, monotone narrator

Was The Vampire: A Casebook worth the listening time?

The content is utterly fascinating, and this is coming from someone who doesn't have much interest in vampires and horror in general. Unfortunately, the narration is monotone and makes it difficult to focus, so I actually listened to it twice because I'm sure I missed something the first time.